Chapter Twenty-Eight
By the middle of the game game my king is secure in the corner, fortified by the queen, my castles, my knights and strategically placed pawns. It’s a strong position that fulfills the most important rule: protection of the king.
In contrast Gabriel has his pieces bleeding into my space—his bishops, his knights. God, even his queen sits on g5, completely in my territory. Seemingly vulnerable, but I can’t touch her.
His king is protected by only a single castle and a pawn.
I would be terrified with that little protection, but Gabriel looks confident and assured as usual. Clearly the strategy is deliberate. And as undefended as his king is, I can’t touch him.
“Shall we make this game more interesting?” he asks.
Stakes, he means. Betting. “What could I have that you want?”
“You know, little virgin.”
My face flames with embarrassment. “You already bought me, remember?”
“I’m talking about a favorable exchange.”
I glance at the board suspiciously. Have I left myself in danger? “My queen for your rook?”
He smiles. “No, my queen for your rook.”
That would put him in a worse position. “Why would you do that?”
“Your house. It matters to you.”
“It’s my house. My family’s house.”
“It’s more than that. Tell me why.”
“I grew up there. My father is comfortable there, and this might be his last few months.” Even that’s not the whole truth, and Gabriel knows it.
“He can be comfortable somewhere else.”
I stare at the board, trying to think how I can take his queen without answering. I can’t. My fists clench helplessly. This is what I didn’t want, to be sucked into a battle of wills with Gabriel Miller. To expose the soft flesh where he can hurt me the worst. But then that’s the entire point of the chess game.
It’s the entire point of a virginity auction, too.
“My mother killed herself.”
He sucks in a breath. “I’m sorry.”
“My dad told everyone it was an accident. Stormy night. Faulty brakes. No one questioned it. But I overheard the police chief talking to him that night. There was no sign of anything wrong with her brakes. And the tracks on the road—their forensics determined it was deliberate.”
Your mind. Your soul. That’s your leverage.
And I’m giving it up in exchange for the truth.
“Avery.”
“They kept it quiet because her family, my grandparents, they’re Catholic. They wanted her buried in the family crypt. They couldn’t have done that if—” If people knew she had killed herself.
“Avery, I’m so sorry.”
I’ve wondered and wondered why she died. Was she scared? Was she angry? I’m a grown woman now but there’s a part of me that will always be that broken little girl, wondering why her mother left her, thinking she wasn’t good enough to make her stay.
“He built that house for my mother,” I say finally. “She conferred with the architect, who designed it for her. I don’t know… I don’t know why she wanted things that way. Or what it means, if anything. But it’s the only thing I have left from her.”
“Her chessboard,” Gabriel says quietly, surprising me. He moves his queen into jeopardy.
“Yes.” It’s from the beginning of her marriage with Daddy, when she was hopeful and in love. That was her opening move. And I already know how it ends. But that murky middle game, the place too wild for theoretical constructs. What happened to her then?
I pick up my castle, holding it tight. The wood ridges press into my skin, a pain I find comforting. Then I push aside his queen, capturing her with his consent.
We play the endgame to the sound of a crackling fire for a few minutes. The queen has given me an edge that I might be able to carry into checkmate. Though with his skill he can drag it out for some time, maybe even turn the tables. Unlikely.
I find myself longing to even the score. The queen wasn’t a fair trade.
“A favorable exchange,” I say.
His eyebrows rise. “Your queen?”
“For your rook. Why did you want my father’s business, if it was failing so bad?”
His surprise fills the room, as loud as the fire, as the click of wood against wood. It’s a tangible thing, his shock. His reluctance to answer. But he wants my queen. “I saw you,” he says slowly. “At your graduation party.”
My eyes widen. “You were there?”
“Your father invited me. It would look less conspicuous if I arrived in a crowd. If I were seen dealing with him directly, people would assume we were working together.”
I remember the cake shaped like a graduation hat, my elation after four years of preparatory academy uniforms, my excitement over going to college. So full of hope. I’d had no idea that two years later I’d be on the auction block.
And I remember the man on the stairs. “I saw you.”
“And I wanted you,” Gabriel says.
My breath catches at the raw truth of him. He’s exposing himself. It’s worth so much more than my queen. “What did you do?”
“I’m not a monster, despite what you think. I could have had you. Could have forced your hand even then. But I wanted you to come to me.”
Oh, but he did force my hand. With patience, with cunning. He moved the chess pieces around, blocking me in from behind until there was only one path open to me.
I move my rook out of safety. “That’s why you ruined my father,” I whisper.
“I’m patient, when I need to be.” He captures my queen, turning this into a race to the end. “When your father’s business was struggling, he needed a buyer. It was his choice to cheat me.”
“That doesn’t explain why he invited you to my graduation party in the first place. What were you working on with him? What didn’t he want people to know about?”
Gabriel studies the board. “How much do you know about your father?”
“I went to the trial.” Even though it had felt like a punch in the gut, every dark revelation about him, every former colleague that stood on the witness stand to testify against him. So many secrets. “I heard what he did.”
“Not everything.”
“Then what?”
“Your bishop,” he says softly.
I look down at the board, denial in my hands, my arms. Clenched in my chest. I can still win this. I know I can, and I think he knows it too. Except if I give him my bishop, I’ll be leaving my king exposed. Checkmate in two moves. I’ll lose. How much is this information worth to me?
My heart beats a frantic rhythm as I reach the end.
I move the bishop into jeopardy.
“I’ve known your father for years. Who he is. But I hadn’t worked with him before. He invited me to your graduation party to see if I’d be willing to work with him, like my father did.”
Dread is a cold fist around my heart. “What did your father do with him?”
“He bought things. Sold things.” Gabriel uses his knight to take my queen. Only one move left and he’ll have my king. “Like most businessmen do.”
Except that his father was a liar, which is why Gabriel hated him so much. “Drugs. Guns?”
Golden eyes meet mine. “People.”
I suck in a breath, horrified, disbelieving. “No.”
He means that his father dealt in human trafficking. That my father had too.
“Move,” Gabriel says softly.
My fingers feel numb as I nudge a pawn forward. I ought to just knock over my king. I know what’s coming, but I need to hear him say it. I need to know the truth. Maybe I’m just like Gabriel Miller, after all. Myths can tell you about the people who make them, who believe them, but it’s the truth that matters.
His rook crosses the board to the first row. Checkmate.
The word comes from ancient Persian. Some say it means the King is dead, but the translation is a little less dire—depending on how you look at it. The King is helpless. The King is defeated. When there are no moves left, the only option is surrender.
“I don’t deal in people,” he says. “I made that promise to myself when my father died. Never. Not ever. And then you were there, desperate and broke. God, you’d actually gotten thinner.”
“You could have helped me!”
“That’s not how this works.”
The auction had been brutal. Being purchased like an object. The brief moments of kindness he gives me. “You bought me, but you haven’t fucked me.”
“Is it killing you, the wait? Are you imagining the worst-case scenario with that beautiful strategic brain of yours? Would it be better if I came to your room tonight and broke you, little virgin?”
Yes, God help me. I can’t manage words, and it comes out as a sob. My father was the monster in the Labyrinth all along. That’s who I put my virginity on the auction block for, someone who had bought and sold people. That’s what had paid for my tuition, my fancy dresses. I feel sick. Did my mother know about this? Was this why she killed herself?
The last thing I see before I flee from the room is my king, fallen over on the board.